History, Politics, Life, and other Dangerous Hobbies

Attention to Orders: Birthdays

…Strategic Air Command (SAC) is stood up on this day at Bolling AFB, D.C., in 1946.

The Armor’d Hand is not Dead, no, Nay,It but sleepeth, waiting like Arthur for the Day When its People cry for its return, saying,“The Bear roams again, the Peril rises, and the Persians connive,“Ronaldus Magnus rests in the House of his Fathers, and hears us not,“Defend us once more, we pray ye.”

The Armor’d Hand shall rise and don its steel once more as in the Olden Time,Shall pick up his shield and gather his eagles from their rest,The sound of the Stratofortress shall be heard again in the land.And the spirits of LeMay and of Power and yea, even of Mitchell, shall take their place at his side,Their spirits and vigor undimmed.And they shall say unto the People,“You denied us when the Bear spoke of peace, and when the Peril offered its hand, And even when the Persians smote you in your own lands, you still denied us. You rent our eagles in twain, you threw away our ballista, you scattered our servants to the winds.“But we shall defend once more, for that was our promise unto you and your fathers before, and as it shall ever be unto you, yea, even unto the hundreth generation. “Peace was our profession, and shall be again.”

And my devotion to SAC was such that on its fortieth birthday, I arranged for my son’s birth:

I believe that someone needs a certain heart to fly a Spitfire, one of courage and elan and spirit unbreakable. That would be Mike. Happy Birthday, Bear. Next year you’re officially old. 😀

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In the beginning was the National Command Authority.
And the National Command Authority said, “Let there be SAC.”
And there was SAC.
And the National Command Authority spoke unto SAC,
Commanding, “Create a force so powerful that The Heathen Aggressors shall be deterred from aggression.”
And thus SAC grew from strength to strength, gaining bombers, tankers, thermonuclear weapons, and ballistic missiles.

And then the Heathen Aggressor, caught in the web of its own lies, collapsed.
And verily, some Apostates in the CSAF Office did engage in soothsaying,
Telling the CSAF “Now that the Heathen Aggressor hath collapsed, what need have we for SAC? For verily, their aircraft are not as flashy and cool as TAC’s fighters, and they do not playeth Crud, nor do they talketh with their hands at the bar. Indeed, many of them flyeth not, but sitteth underground, watching flashing lights on consoles, and doing other tasks unworthy of Airmen.”

And the CSAF spake, saying “Verily, they are dull, uninteresting, humorless sorts, who solely prostrateth themselves before the Gods of the ORI and the Damage Expectancy Score. Let us do away with SAC, and their Holy Checklists, and their ORI, and their demands of perfection. Let us remaketh the Air Farce in our image, perchance to have Hollywood maketh a motion picture or about our flashy jets.”

And so it came to pass, and the United States Air Force abolished SAC, transferring assets willy and nilly throughout the Air Force. And verily, the Guardians of the Holy Nuclear Warheads of Antioch became wroth, and many of the best left the Air Farce to seeketh fortune and glory in the greener pastures of Civilian Commerce, while, verily, many of the Guardians of the Holy Nuclear Warheads of Antioch who remained were…well, they weren’t the dumbest of the Lord God’s creatures, but verily, they were awfully close.

And eventually, the chickens cameth home to roosteth in the House of BUFFs, and all manner of foolishness and vanity cameth to pass. The Holy Warheads of Antioch were misplaced, units failed the ORI Inquisition, and things sanketh so low that the High Command proposed giving medals to those who merely managed to meet embarrassingly low standards of performance that would’ve gotten them fired in the Age of Saint Curtis…